South Sudan: It’s the Economy Stupid!, Unmade by John Garang
5 min readBy Deng Lual DeNuun, Nairobi-Kenya
March 18, 2015 (SSB) – “We are prone to judge our success by the index of our fat salaries or size of automobiles like the V8s (miith apuol) in our villages without even parking space and spare parts for repairs rather than by service to the nation in relation to better living for all than hand to the mouth and equal access to resources”.
A successful economy is widely regarded as the backbone of a successful country, it’s unfortunate fact that a country almost made up by one profession is sliding to burying if nothing is done to rescue its shrinking economy given the negligence and incompetency of its top man powers despite alarm raised many times by its few economists.
It is flabbergasting to see our own money devaluing against the US dollar as its black market is today reading at one thousand pounds per a hundred US dollars and little is being done to baffle the situation.
South Sudan, with its long rich history in wars, the onset of its liberation struggles, the initial class to be attended to by its warlords was the military college where only swords and blood was installed into them and called themselves comrades in arm. This includes many recruits even those from the cattle camps including the father to the author were taken straight to the field hence became their only profession.
Many who passed through education system emerged with different surplus professions other than a single military mindset. Dr. Garang did this in the SPLM/A were some were to fight the battle while invested some in education such that they latter become the elites of its nation.
While I appreciate our roots that our country crashed from militarily backgrounds, it is so sad to see our own government neglecting its own elites that were planted as seeds for development but rather prefer to continue embracing the depleted mindsets of the professions of centuries. Why is South Sudan dumping its professionals?
The answer is vivid, misguided appointments and military qualifications being prioritized as evidenced by no one in the government is without the military title even when they are leading the civilians?, our own civil servants attached themselves to military background such as a red army in order to qualify for junior seats? What of those who did not attend to war at all? A food for thought.
It is further crystal clear that the post independence issues with the Sudan were negotiated by right people but in wrong professions. The economic issues were ironed out by lawyers and that is why we ended up having our large oil share enjoys by Khartoum or perhaps sharing it equally. In real sense, when the few economists in Juba questioned the competitiveness of this people, the reply was, it is unmade by Garang and eventually the deal led to the September 2012 agreement.
As if that was enough, the recent paralyzed Addis Ababa negotiations of conflict that dived the country into civil war since the December 2013 were again being headed by lawyers and comrades in the arm struggle who only believe hanging by the neck and fire squad as the only verdict for those who went against the will of the serving government. These depleted ideologists led once again and will continue to ruin how we resolve our issues if we don’t reap where we saw.
Furthermore, the first decade has been of challenges of how to embrace the slogan of taking town to people, the slogan of Agricultural economy fuel by oil money, the slogan of peace through development and the slogan of healing and reconciliation. With many available resources, the government did too little to achieve any of the above slogans and therefore the recipes of the ongoing crisis that has further contributed to the dying economy of the nation.
Moreover, South Sudan is now the dumping sites of the foreign expired goods, it is a shameful note for a country to import almost everything even what its nation has, the importation of beef being the clear example, our cows are too expensive because of the fluctuating economy and foreign currencies becoming the mode of exchange. Farmers are unable to transport their produce from Tali because of impassable roads or no pave at all.
The government is not putting into consideration the elasticity in International trade when coming to devaluing her currency such that to encourage exports and discourage imports but say everything is okay as long as we have something on our tables.
It is the economy stupid! For how long shall we continue importing? How do we ensure we feed our population? How do we ensure our cows produce millions of litres to feed over 4million children and how do we eradicate diseases and finally how do we dish out from dying economy?
It is high time the government re-energizes and prioritizes professions rather than whom you know than what you know or rather than pen versus a gun and rather than comrade in the struggle than comrade in the development. By doing so, we will be smart like Greece that has recently survived the financial overlaps; we will emerge once again and restore the economy.
Finally, our lives begin to end the day we become too silent about things that matters and when the deal is too good, think twice. Bring back peace to the country for better economy and serves the lives of few that have remain!
The author, Mr. Deng Lual DeNuun is currently a University student in Kenya. He can be reached at denglual86@gmail.com or facebook page: Deng Lual DeNuun.
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